The Bride Collector (41 page)

“Let’s go. The FBI is waiting.”

“They’re asking for me at headquarters?” Roudy stammered.

She spun back. “They are begging,” she said, then walked out with Roudy at her heels.

BRAD HAD LOST
track of time. Two oil lamps on the table cast yellow light inside, but it was dark outside. He knew this because the winks
of white sky in the room had gone black. Twice he’d passed out upon collapsing to the ground after his regimen of slams against
the wood pole to his back.

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Deep breath. Lean forward. Another deep breath…

Slam…

Five slams each time, like a football drill in reverse, ignoring the pain before sliding back to the ground for a rest.

Hours had passed, he knew that much. But he’d stopped trying to keep track of his progress or gauge his hope. He had no hope.
The reasoning that had gotten him into this futile escape attempt had long left him.

The exercise had become a simple one. As long as he still had enough strength to stand and throw himself backward, he would.
Thinking about whether the strategy was working only weakened his focused resolve. He had no destination now, just the will
to place one foot in front of the other. He kept only one thing on his mind.

Paradise.

With each thrust of his body backward, an image of her filled his mind. He didn’t harbor any illusion about saving her, because
back when he was thinking things through, he concluded that he’d long ago run out of time.

His exercise became as much a perverse form of penance as an attempt to escape. Even if he did manage to break the post, he
had no clue where he was or how far from help. Even if he did get to help, he knew he was too late.

There was always the possibility that Quinton would grab Paradise and bring her back here, but that thought terrified Brad
more than any other. The killer would find him alive and awake and would take twisted pleasure in forcing him to watch while
he tortured Paradise in new, unthinkable ways fueled by the audience. Her death would be worse because of him.

Brad slammed into the post in bitter protest of his own weakness. For every woman who had ever been told she wasn’t normal
or that she was ugly. For every girl who’d been abused by a father, for every man blinded to the true beauty of every Paradise.

What he would give now to sweep her off her feet and rush her to the highest mountain refuge, far away from all the cruelty
the world threw at those it judged to be less than extraordinary. Because Quinton Gauld was right about one thing, even Allison
would say so.

They were all God’s favorites.

They were all beautiful, exquisite creatures in their own way. Men as well, yes, but this was about women. Every one was a
treasure of the highest order, and with the pain of each crash into the post, this truth, no matter how melodramatic it might
seem in less pointed circumstances, was driven deep into Brad’s mind.

Crash… crash… crash… crash… crash…

If only he had protected her. How, he didn’t know, but that hardly mattered now. A week ago she was nothing more than a curiosity
to him, a monkey in the zoo, as she put it. It didn’t matter that he had only known her a short time, didn’t matter that there
was no obligation on his part to love her over any other woman.

Had he ever met a woman as desirable as Paradise? Had he ever connected with such a deep soul, seen such soft eyes light up
when he walked into the room?

Forgive me, Paradise… Please, I beg you… Forgive me. I was a fool for not knowing. I wouldn’t do it again. I swear I would
sweep you off your feet. I would smother you with kisses and promise to never allow a man to lay a hand of harm on you again.

In Brad’s tortured mind, now stripped of the pretense that distorted the world’s view of beauty, he understood clearly: Paradise
was the favorite. The one bride every man would kill for.

And now Quinton Gauld, this demon from hell who strutted about the world in a man’s body and called himself human, would rob
Brad of all second chances.

Tears had long ago dried on his dirty cheeks, but now his eyes flooded with them again. He pushed himself to his feet, sliding
up the pole, which creaked angrily against his body weight. He leaned forward, body quaking. It was all pointless, but he
couldn’t think like that.

He threw himself back, crashed into the post. The loud impact took his breath this time, and he had wait for it to return.
If the pole broke and the timber it supported collapsed and crushed Brad, his death would not be wasted.

Brad hurled his weight backward.
Crack
. This time the collision did not take his breath, because he was falling.

His impact with the earth behind him, however, pounded the air from his lungs. He tried to breathe and blinked up at the splintered
end of the post over his head, still hanging from the beam above.

It took him a moment to fully realize that he’d just broken the pole and that the bottom half was lying on the dirt floor
beside him.

His breath and his mind returned to him at the same time. Adrenaline flooded his veins, jacking his heart rate up to a steady
hammer.

He rolled to his right, desperate to be on his feet, but his hands were still secured behind him, and for an awful second
he wondered if Quinton had tied him to a stake in the ground in case he managed to break the post.

He frantically rolled away from the post. In the process his hands came free—the knot apparently having loosened as he fought
to free himself. Brad scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain on his right side. If he’d survived this long, he wasn’t in
danger of dying from the wound now.

He stood tensed, hands clawed, beside the blanketed stage, at a momentary loss. His freedom had come so unexpectedly that
he forgot what it was he’d had in mind.

Escape.

A phone, he had to find a phone. Or a car. He had to make contact with Temple.

No, first the medical kit.

He leaped over the blanket, threw the black medical kit open. Scissors, gauze, and a scalpel lay in a neatly arranged tray.
A thick bunch of first-aid antiseptic bandages was bound together with a yellow tube of antibiotic ointment. Besides these
items, he saw a large assortment of medications and some putty, a small chisel, and a hammer.

Brad ripped open his shirt and stared at the angry, bloody wound on his side. He picked up a small brown bottle of hydrogen
peroxide, spun the cap off with unsteady fingers, and splashed the disinfectant on his side. The liquid foamed as it made
contact with the wound, which was not as deep as it looked. He deduced that his weakness was more from dehydration and blood
loss than injury.

It occurred to him that he might not want to leave evidence of his pilfering out for Quinton to see. He stopped. Then again,
the broken pole was evidence enough. His mind wasn’t working right.

Think!

Without taking any more time to cleanse the wound thoroughly, he applied a finger of antibiotic cream directly onto the entry
point, slapped on an adhesive bandage, then wrapped his lower body with an Ace bandage. Then he quickly drained a bottle of
water that sat on the counter.

He closed the bag.

On second thought… He reached back in, took out the scalpel, and closed it up again. Then he took a clawed hammer from the
table and strode toward the open barn door, moving fast.

Dark outside, pitch-dark. A gravel driveway snaked into the night. Without any knowledge of where he was, he had little choice
but to follow the road to wherever it led him.

For the first time in several hours, Brad began to hope. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he could hope now and so he did.

Please, God. Please let her be alive.

SHE REMEMBERED THE
lights over her head as they rolled her down the hall, and she remembered hearing the attendants’ voices talking about the
way she looked, but whatever they’d shot into her veins had pushed out the light, and Paradise had retreated into her fog
of safety, away from the demons snapping at her heels.

The last conscious thought she could remember was that she’d finally gone crazy. For real crazy. Psychotic. But that was okay,
because Roudy and Andrea and Enrique were also psychotic now and then, and she loved them just the way they were.

They must have placed her in a hospital bed and pulled a blanket over her head. Either that or she was dead and they’d taken
her to the morgue. But she’d opened her eyes and could feel the blanket over her face. It was pitch-black under here.

Her arms didn’t want to move.

No sound. She wasn’t lying flat on her back. She was slouching against the elevated mattress behind her. She’d been in this
situation before, seven years ago. The only way to avoid more medication was to act totally normal. A problem for a person
who was
not
normal. But she was normal, right?

Her first impulse to throw the blanket off in a panic was tempered by her slow-moving muscles and by her clearing reason.

Depending on what drug they had given her, she might soon be clear of the fog they’d induced. Most antipsychotic medications
took days to work their way out of a person’s system, but maybe they’d only given her a sedative.

Or they’d given her an antipsychotic and her mind would clear
because
of it. She wasn’t psychotic, but she had no other explanation for the behaviors that had led to her being brought here.

At the moment this was the last of her concerns.

The phone call from the killer suddenly blasted into her mind, explaining why she was lying here, incapacitated in the hospital
while…

Dear God! He had Brad!

Her pulse raced. She had to get out into the hall, find a phone, and call Allison. The killer had prohibited it, but that
didn’t matter anymore. She had to tell Allison everything!

She forced her hand off her belly where it rested and clawed at the cover. Her muscles nearly didn’t obey. The blanket slipped
off her head, freeing her eyes to see the darkened hospital room.

But it wasn’t a room. She blinked, fearful that she was hallucinating. Her drugged mind was telling her that she was inside
a pickup truck parked at a gas station, but she knew better. She was in the hospital where she’d been drugged and admitted.

Unless that was the hallucination and this the reality.

Or unless she
had
been in the hospital but was now in a pickup truck, staring out a dirty side window at a row of Chevron pumps. She blinked
again but the image remained.

Paradise sat up and pulled the blue blanket down to her waist. She was in a pickup truck, one with a center console that divided
her seat from the driver’s. A can of Dr Pepper sat in one cup holder, a phone in the other. The phone the killer had left
for her.

So then…

She snapped straight as a springboard, face throbbing with heat. This was his truck, she was in his truck, he somehow managed
to get her, she didn’t know how, but she was here at a gas station and she was in the killer’s truck.

For a full ten seconds Paradise tried to think clearly enough to make a decision. She tried to move, to run, to scream, to
hide, to do anything but sit here like a lump waiting for him to come back, because he was gone and she didn’t know where
and she had to do something, something, anything.

But she couldn’t move.

Her muscles broke free of terror’s grip all at once and she was clambering. She grabbed at the door handle, yanked it. Her
hand slipped off and it banged loudly.

Locked.

She searched for the locking mechanism, but couldn’t find one. She wasn’t familiar with cars, and it didn’t matter because
he wasn’t stupid enough to leave her in an unlocked truck. But she had to get out!

A strange whimpering sound, like a kitten in trouble, broke the silence. She shut her mouth to still her cry and breathed
through her nose in shallow, panicked draws of air as she twisted left and right, searching for something.

Anything!

Pale light washed over the interior, revealing clean, uncluttered surfaces. The dash was empty. The seats looked new. She
jerked the glove compartment latch and the drawer flapped down. Inside she found a map, still folded neatly, a black comb,
and a packet of tissue paper. That was all.

It occurred to her then that she should kick at the window, break it out.

She slammed the glove compartment shut, pulled her legs up, leaned back against the center console, and kicked her bare feet
into the window with all of her strength. They bounced off with a thud, and she did it again… and again.

Screaming this time.

She pressed her face against the window and was about to pound on it as hard as she could to draw attention from a someone,
anyone, when she saw him.

The man she’d seen upon touching the dead body, the same one she’d drawn for Brad, was at the corner of the convenience store,
walking toward the front door in even strides, unconcerned. He was tall, dressed in gray slacks, dark hair. In his right hand
he held a piece of wood with a key attached to it.

He was the only one in sight and theirs was the only vehicle as far as she could see.

Paradise pulled back and ducked, trembling. The only person’s attention she would draw here would be his.

She waited a moment in her slouch, but he would return soon. She had to move now, get out now.

She peeked over the door frame and saw that he was inside. On the window a sign read
WELCOME TO ST. FRANCIS GAS AND GO
in large red letters trimmed in black.

She was peering over the door frame at the outside world, and it was as threatening as her worst fears had taught her.